The Palestinian Health Ministry has officially opened the Indonesian Hospital on Sunday to treat the residents of northern Gaza, after the closure of Kamel Odwan Hospital for maintenance purposes.

Indonesian volunteers have supervised the construction of the hospital in north Gaza. The hospital, which was initially inaugurated on June 15, was built on donations by Indonesian citizens.

In the hospital there are 100 beds, four operating rooms, 10 ICU beds and 10 emergency beds.

Spokesman for the Ministry Ashraf Qudra said that the new hospital is to be the main hospital in northern Gaza, as it provides distinctive and modern medical services.

The hospital which was given the name Rumah Sakit Indonesia also has complete medical support facilities. Such as, 24 hours clinic, Ct-Scan tools, as well as a number of modern and up-to-date medical equipment, he underlined.

Starting from Sunday, the residents of north Gaza can head to the new Indonesian hospital for medical services, the spokesman declared.

The Israeli occupation army on Wednesday handed Palestinian citizens in al-Khader town, west of Bethlehem city, notices ordering them to halt construction works at their homes as a prelude to demolishing them.

Coordinator of the national committee against settlement Ahmed Salah said that owners of eight homes in the town were ordered to stop constructing or making changes to their homes.

Salah added that the Israeli army gave the homeowners 25 days to straighten out the status of their houses before issuing demolition orders against them.

Five of the homes threatened with demolition are inhabited and three others are still under construction. All of them are located in an area under Israel's control in accordance with the Oslo agreement with the Palestinian Authority.

Official data for the Israeli municipality in occupied Jerusalem showed that only 7 percent of building permits issued in recent years are for apartments in the Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem or what is called "the eastern area", despite the fact that 40 percent of the city's population live in the Palestinian Arab neighborhoods.

Haaretz Hebrew newspaper revealed that the current Jerusalem Mayor, Nir Barkat, said before his election seven years ago that one of his primary functions is to address the unauthorized construction problem east of the city, the problem that resulted from the lack of structural drawings or problems in the registration of lands and the policy of neglect the Israeli municipality followed toward the Arab neighborhoods in occupied Jerusalem, but the data show that Barakat is following the same municipal policy pursued by his predecessors.

According to the municipal data, only 7 per cent of apartment building permits had been given in recent years to about 40 per cent of the population of the city who are Arabs, while most of these permits were issued for apartments in Beit Hanina only, and not for most of the city's neighborhoods.

The municipality issued only 158 permits for the Arabs, about two-thirds of which are for apartments in Beit Hanina, while the municipality issued a total of 1,270 permits for the general population.

In 2014 the municipality issued 188 construction permits in the Arab neighborhoods, while it issued 3,238 permits to other neighborhoods all over the city.

In the last five years, the municipality issued 11,603 permits, only 878 of which are in the Palestinian Arab neighborhoods.

The Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) abruptly banned the U.N. system for the distribution of cement on ordinary people in the blockaded Gaza Strip as of December 3, the Palestinian Ministry of Economy reported Tuesday.

The local SAFA News Agency quoted undersecretary of the Economy Ministry, Imad al-Baz, as saying: “On December 3, Palestinian citizens were shocked by an Israeli decision banning the distribution of cement quantities registered in the ministry’s archives.”

Al-Baz added that the U.N follow-up Secretariat voiced its surprise at the ban, and said contacts are being currently held with the IOA to have it rescinded.

He warned of the serious repercussions of such a decision, which means that over 30,000 Palestinians will be prevented from the needed cement quantities.

He called on the international community to pressure the Israeli occupation to cancel the ban and allow the transfer of cement into the besieged Gaza Strip.

The Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) Monday ordered 18 Palestinians families in al-Naqar neighborhood, west of Qalqilya, to halt construction of their homes under the pretext of unlicensed building.

Local sources said Israeli army forces broke into the neighborhood and handed notifications to stop the construction of a total of 18 Palestinian homes.

The sources added that the owners of the notified homes have obtained construction permits issued by Qalqilya municipality, and they are included in the city’s master plan.

Many of the notified homes have been constructed and inhabited for more than ten years, which only makes these orders a kind of collective punishment against the neighborhood’s native inhabitants.

The Israeli occupation army on Sunday ordered, with no stated reason, Palestinian citizens to stop construction and cultivation works on their own plots of land in Beit Ummar town, north of al-Khalil city.

Anti-settlement activist Mohamed Awad told Quds Press that employees from the civil administration of the Israeli army handed brothers Issa and Anwar Alami notices ordering them to halt construction works at their new homes in Beit Ummar town.

Another resident of the town named Safwan Baragith was handed a similar notice, Awad added.

The civil administration also handed Yousuf Abu Ayyash a notice ordering him to stop working his three-dunum agricultural land in Wad al-Arab area of the town.